We arrived on the island of St. Croix on a beautiful evening with balmy temperatures and somewhat cloudy skies.

The clouds quickly moved on and the night was gorgeous. We made our way through the darkness to our condo at Gentle Wind, just a few feet from the location where Christopher Columbus landed on his second visit to the New World in 1493.

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Our host was Sharon Early, who made certain we followed every crossroad and narrow highway with her leading us. The roads are, indeed, narrow and reminiscent of our visit to Ireland. However, in St. Croix, the driver is on the left side and the car is also on the left side, which is different from Europe. Along with the sharp turns, it took a little while to get used to the driving rules. Gas prices were surprising -- $3.99 a gallon. They were $2.99 a gallon in Kansas City that morning.

Our trip was flawless. We flew American out of Kansas City to Dallas and then to Miami and then onto St. Croix. All flights were perfectly on time and we arrived refreshed and ready for our island adventure.

However, don't look for any empty flights to anyplace these days. Computers keep all planes full, and our flights were all full except for an empty seat here and there. And, of course, if you fly much, you learn there is little if any food available on a plane.

By the time we arrived in St. Croix it was late for most businesses and restaurants. However, our condominium offered a wonderful service, a personal shopper. Before leaving Kansas City, we had checked off a shopping list for us and all the food was in the fridge and on the shelves when we arrived. When you spend a lot of money to get to a special vacation spot, the last thing you want to spend time on is shopping for groceries and drinks. By staying in a U.S. possession, the U.S Virgin Islands are an American territory, it saved us a lot of time getting through customs. It's almost like going from Missouri to Kansas.

We awoke to the beautiful sounds of the white caps of the sea gushing toward the island's beaches. The sun shone brightly. The temperatures were in the 80s. It was perfect. Back home in Kansas City, a couple of inches of snow and ice had fallen and the temperatures were plunging to 10 degrees above zero. Suddenly it makes the cost of getting away to a warm climate in January well worth the money. I'll be writing more about our visit in future "Letters from Larry." I hope you enjoy them.